WeeklyStoryContests ... Theme 4 ... "The Enemy Ally" ... (2K max.)

Flames, a thousand times more scorching hot than the sun in the height of summer, were devouring the forest on our mountain as if it were cotton-candy. Mother, myself, the twins and Grandmother watched in utter dismay as century old trees were disintegrating like sugar on each tongue of fire. Bright, orange and hypnotizing the fire ate up everything in its enormous path, expelling dark grey plumes of smoke into the cloudless sky, and leaving a sinister trail of blackened entrails in its wake. This was the first forest fire I had ever witnessed and it was terrifying.

Grandmother and Mother were several meters below myself and my twin brothers. They were talking very softly to each other. Every now and then, over the howling of the hot winds blowing in our direction, which were bringing mordant smoke and blackened flecks of ash with them, I caught a word or two of their hushed conversation.

They were discussing whether to cross the river to safety or to try and outrun the fire here on our side of the river valley. It seemed to me that they could not readily agree on a path of action, and yet, the fire was not abating. The more they delayed the closer it came to us.

I didn't know whether to bolt up the mountain or down, myself. However, I was ready to move one way or another when the command came. Standing still like this, watching our forest being devoured tree by blessed tree, was almost too much for anyone to take. I and the twins were trembling with fright.

Mother stood up and shook out her glossy thick grey and black coat, which was covered in delicate sooty ashes. She turned her face to look at my younger brothers and I. Giving us a sharp bark, she commanded us to follow her down the mountain. Mother had decided we were going to cross the river and she tore down the mountain side ahead of us to prepare the way.

Grandmother gave a second bark and that shook me into action. I yipped at Haiiro and Kuroguro. Though they whined back at me, they rose from their bellies obediently, shook off the paper thin ashes from their sleek coats, and followed me to Grandmother's side. Grandmother instructed us to follow closely at her heals and not to get left behind.

Dashing down the mountain side she rushed headlong after Mother's trail and I pushed the pups to follow her as fast as they could. Luckily the two of them loved to race and soon it was a game between them to see who could keep up the best with Grandmother. I might have laughed and yipped playfully at them but I could feel the heat of the fire at my backside egging me on, which distracted me from all thoughts but escape.

                                                             ---------------

The plan was to outrun the kilometer wide fire and cross the turbulent river at the bottom of the valley to safety. Only, this safe haven, which we so desperately wanted to reach, had other dangers. It was enemy territory. It wasn't a wonder now why Mother and Grandmother could not readily agree on where to decamp to.

A grizzly old grey wolf with a heavily scarred face called Sayu ruled the eastern side of the river valley and he had been at war with Grandmother ever since she turned down his advances many years ago. One spring when he was a much younger wolf, he braved the rushing flood waters of the river to mate with Grandmother. When he arrived on the western shores he discovered that Grandmother had already mated with a lone wolf from the northern side of the mountain. In a bitter rage Sayu slayed my grandfather and drove my grandmother high into the mountain - beyond the treeline. Since that day Grandmother has been keeping us all safely hidden and tucked far away from Sayu's reach.

That didn't stop Sayu and his pack from coming after us. They've been crossing the river into our territory every year since that decisive encounter. Sayu crosses the river at the end of summer, when the river is at its lowest, and he and his pack come just to hunt us. For years now, Grandmother has laid false trails for him and his pack to find while Mother (and later I) hid in obscure caves or well hidden dens. When the twins arrived the spring before last, Mother stopped hiding. She, along with Grandmother, did whatever they could to lead Sayu and his pack astray, while I and my two younger brothers hid.

Sayu and his pack had just been here hunting us only a few weeks back. They were going to be shocked when they caught our scent on their side of the valley.

                                                             ---------------

Grandmother, myself and the pups managed to make it safely across the river but our relief was short-lived when we saw what awaited us there. Sayu had my mother by the throat.

Mother was badly beaten. Her grey fur was stained crimson with her own blood. Grandmother whined at Mother whose eyes opened briefly. She looked like she was in terrible agony and my heart broke for her.

While we were thus per-occupied, Sayu's pack surrounded us on all sides. There was no way to escape. I snapped at the boys with my teeth directing them to get between Grandmother and myself for their safety. Afterwards, I turned my back to them and faced any wolf that stepped in our direction. I lowered my ears, peeled back my lips, bared my fangs, and growled threateningly at Sayu's pack.

A great piercing howl split the smoke-filled air and all the wolves around us stood to attention. I had thought that Sayu was the leader of this pack until that moment. It wasn't his howl that brought the pack to heel. His mouth was still clamped down tightly on my mother's throat.

I sniffed the air for a new scent but all I could smell was the smoke from the forest fire. It clung to my nostrils and invaded my lungs to the exclusion of all other scents. The deeper I sniffed the more my nostrils burned with it.

A low growl, emitted from my grandmother, alerted me to the arrival of a new threat. I carefully looked behind me while trying to keep a watchful eye on the wolves in front of me. There, a meter above us, on a large rounded boulder that protruded from the grassy plain were we stood, appeared an enormous white wolf. I would recognize him anywhere with that pure white coat. It was Mashiro.

Mother had pointed him out to me during one of our scouting sessions along the river's edge a few years back. He was hard to miss with that brilliant coat. At the time, she suspected that he would soon challenge Sayu for the leadership of the pack. But, even so, she warned me that we could not trust Mashiro not to carry on the traditions of the pack Sayu built. In other words, he was just as much an enemy as Sayu and I watched him warily now.

The great white wolf rebuked his wayward pack with a fearsome bark and growl. The winds had changed in the valley and the fire was trying to leap from the west side of the valley to the east across the expansive river we had just crossed. He had come to tell his pack to stop this foolishness and get ready to vacate the valley.

Sayu growled in displeasure and this brought the wrath of Mashiro down on him. Sayu was forced to drop my mother's neck from his teeth when the alpha wolf lept at him from the boulder. The older wolf tried to scurry backwards but he wasn't fast enough for the much younger and furious Mashiro, who easily knocked Sayu to the ground.

A very brief struggle ensued. Sayu, so bent on his revenge against my grandmother, was not willing to let his catch go. He was so close to ruining my grandmother's life by killing off my mother that he refused to yield to the new alpha. The consequences were swift and absolute.

Mashiro did not have time to waste on a foolish old wolf who would not listen to him and risked the safety of the entire pack over an old vendetta. With his superior strength and agility, the alpha overpowered Sayu and broke his neck with a violent bite and twist of his head. Mashiro could not afford to tolerate insubordination from the old alpha in the early weeks of his leadership. This fight and this outcome had been inevitable as far as he was concerned.

The moment Sayu was dead, the twins whined for Mother, who was trying to stand to her feet despite her injuries. Grandmother went to her at once and stood over her while Mashiro turned from Sayu's dead body and trotted in their direction. Grandmother's hair bristled and she crouched slightly, ready to strike at the white wolf if he should so much as think about harming her precious daughter.

Mashiro ignored my mother and grandmother and opted to address his pack. He barked at them telling them that they were to forget about the pack from the west side of the valley and get moving. If they refused, he promised to kill them and leave their corpses behind for the raging fire to devour - fur, flesh, bone and all.

Grandmother stopped growling the instant she heard his command. An unofficial truce was made and not a moment too soon. She whined at my mother who had stopped trying to get to her feet because she was too weak now to even care.

Another howl went up and Mashiro's pack heeded the call to move on. We watched them disappear into the tall grass heading south. Mashiro lingered a moment longer to speak to me. With Mother on the cusp of dying and Grandmother past her prime, I was now the alpha female of our little pack from the other side of the river.

"You have safe passage here in my territory, Akai, until the fire is spent." I was so shocked that he knew my name I almost didn't register what he was saying. "Afterwards though ..." He paused here, leaned in close and rubbed his shoulder against mine provocatively. Then continuing in a low and seductive voice he promised, "We can always renegotiate the truce later."

I didn't move, didn't flinch. I kept my eyes on my mother, brothers and Grandmother. This was my pack to run and protect now. It was my responsibility to keep them safe from harm. I looked over at Mashiro, whose dark brown eyes were watching me with interest. I gave him a curt nod and then left him to be with my little pack as we comforted my mother in her last moments. I never saw him leave but had no doubt he had moved on.

What was most important was that we had a truce until the fire ran out. Consequently, outmaneuvering the fire was our next priority. I would worry about the consequences of aligning myself with the enemy after we were well out of the reach of the scorching orange flames that moved ever closer to us even now.

After all, a truce was no good to my pack if we were charred and dead before we could fully benefit from it.

(1927)